Harry Potter and the Legacy of Bubblegum
by CasullWriting
Summary: [Not a crack fic, promise.] Eleven years after the defeat of Lord Voldemort, the public grows restless knowing he's out there somewhere. A new teacher joins Hogwarts with a foul mouth and a strange skillset with past disagreements with Dumbledore. In a universe with an overhauled magic system and Apparation is unheard of, you have to work your ass off to defeat the Dark Lord.
1. Chapter 1: The small bit before the plot

Harry Potter and the Legacy of Bubblegum

The classroom of "Construction and Mechanics" had been called many names in the past.

_Characterful_

_Unique_

_Repulsive_

Class 7-B were more partial to the third. A suitably disgusting batch of moss covered the antique staircase that rose up to meet the higher platform and equally disrepaired door. A variety of tattered books on physics, chemistry, biology and arcana peppered the endless shelves that encircled the cramped classroom. Neville Longbottom, a young boy who bore a striking affinity for a root vegetable turned to his semi-friend and unwilling protector Harry Potter, "The Boy Who Lived."

"Where d'ya think 'e is 'Arry?" Neville asked in his own unique way.

"How should I know? What possible way would I sense where the professor is?" Said Harry tapping his quill with annoyance. Neville seemed in his normal state anyway, distressed and with no knowledge of what was currently occurring.

"Yeah… But he was different weren't he?"

"He ate an entire chicken, eight bowls of soup, three 'Meat Feast' pizzas, numerous goblets of wine, katsu, four pork pies and a Happy Meal. Yes, I'd conclude he was different." Snapped the boy who had killed Lord Voldemort singlehandedly

"Really, did you count?" Neville muttered in a futile attempt to rise to the verbal challenge.

"Yes Neville. I did. All eighteen items." Harry retorted in exasperation.

This was when Susan Bones was almost almost decapitated by a flying door. The class flew for cover as rotting wood shrapnel ricocheted around the classroom littering the dusty tomes with a green and grey fluff. Then the steps. Large steps echoed through the hall and into 7-B's classroom. Grim strides of certain purpose. A man who truly meant business.

"Shit." Their teacher sighed while poking his head round the door-frame, "Shit, shit, shit, shit."

"Sir!" Hermione Granger squeaked in the most infuriating tone known to man. "You can't swear within a Hogwarts classroom!" Their teacher rubbed his eyes and shifted into full view at the top of the higher platform. A youngish man of thirty. He wore an academics robe, black with a gold trim and wiry glasses with unequally thick lenses. His brown hair mushrooming under a shoddy wizard's hat. The class did not respond to their new teacher.

"Well. I'm not good with new people, talking, or talking to new people." He began, disregarding the looks of confusion from the assembled students. "However what you could say is that I'm good at magic. Possibly the best. Now bef-... What is it Ron?"

"You better then Dumbledore?"

"Are we talking straight duel, unregulated duel, or war?" The professor responded to the scowling ginger who had so rudely interrupted him.

"Unregulated, street style." Ron spluttered sending chunks of Chocolate Globbernaught down the back of Padma Patil's robe.

"Depends if I could be bothered or not. Now, as I was saying."

"Before we start, I want you to set aside your thoughts on the stories. I want you to forget Wingardium Leviosa, Stupefy, Lumos. Those are brands. Spells marketed to you by companies. What I teach you know will be both the foundation of your work at school and the rock of your entire adult life. I will teach you how to create barriers and I'll teach you how to break them. I won't tell you how to cast Lumos, I'll tell you how to build Lumo- What is it Malfoy?"

The spindly form of Draco Malfoy stood to attention at his desk.

"My father will hear of this!" He proclaimed at the top of his lungs.

"What possible reason would make me care about your father?" Asked the exasperated educator.

"My father is Lucius Malfoy!" He yelled again. "And you are an incompetent boob! A fool! A jester! I will not be taught by the likes of you! I am heir to the noble house of Malfoy!" An awkward silence spread across the classroom for the second time.

"Sit down before you make yourself look like even more of an idiot." His teacher sighed.

"Where was I? Ah, I'll tell you how to build Lumos using only your wand and your mind. Magic of this kind cooks your toast, controls your broomsticks and weaves the wards of Hogwarts. Now I fear I'm wittering so I'll bring this to a short close. Some of you have a low capacity for Mana, that's a given. Completely natural. So did I, look at me now. You already have the wand, you already have the mind. Use it. So now that's done. Who's for a bit of Q&amp;A?"

Quiet, yet again. The class sat and stared at him in another awkward silence. This continued for a good fifteen seconds until the less than intelligent Ron Weasley stuck up his scrawny freckled arm for a second time.

"Why don't you like Stupefy?" He squeaked across the room. His teacher tugged at the side of his hat and brushed some dust of his robe.

"That's easy. You see, Stupefy is medieval, genuinely. It's the result of a far inferior subset of magic to what we use now. Take for example the 'Stance' system that was used in India at about the same time as the emergence of Stupefy. Stances produce a spiritual fighter guided by the user, if the spiritual fighter takes damage then so does the wizard. Why would the universe do this? What's the point? The universe doesn't work on arbitrary rules like that. The reason that it existed is because it's a subset of the system we use now, or a system even higher. Somewhere, some wizard casted a spell that caused random individuals in India to produce these 'Stances'. Stupefy was the same, someone found out if you make a stick with some special wood and the biological material of a magical beast it fulfills the conditions for you to be able to vibrate the air in a certain way and produce paranormal effects. We use this outdated system today for dueling, it's flashy, it's fun. I can accept that. But there's a reason I've only met around three Stance users in my life. It's because we discovered this new, far more versatile system that can do everything that one could and more. People still practice these of course, since there's always benefits when conditionals are involved."

Hermione Granger shot up her hand now, Her sleeve slipping down to the elbow due to bad fitting.

"What's a conditional sir, I mean I heard about them in a book and didn't have time to check them in the li-"

"Fascinating Granger." He darted in before he could finish her cut and paste dialogue.

"What we use now is quite close, but not necessarily, true magic. At the moment we suspect it operates the same, however the key difference is that we have conditionals. Conditionals are one of the most prominent things that don't make sense within our current system. If you add a conditional onto your spell, something that limits it, it'll somehow become more powerful. Of course now only the ministry can grant you the usage of one, but i'm sure you've heard of brave heroes in the renaissance sacrificing their life in a conditional to power up a final attack. There are more practical applications however, for example: You want to paralyze your enemy but you simply don't have the magical energy to cast it in a bolt. That's why you put in the conditional "if an enemy steps on my shadow it activates a paralyzing effect." It'd be far, far more complex than that, but that's what a conditional is anyway. This is why using an obviously inferior system of magic like a Stance can pose a realistic threat. You won't study that though, unless you plan on going to India and learning it yourself. Got to stick to the curriculum or upstairs'll turn me to sushi."

Susan Bones coughed and lifted her arm as she trembled with fear.

"W-w-why did you destroy the door like that?" She whispered. The color drained from the professors face.

"Well… I sort of, thought it'd be dramatic y'know?" He admitted rubbing the back of his head. "All awesome when the door explodes, I stride out looking cool while you're sitting there in awe. But I seemed to have got my spells mixed up. Sorry Susan, won't happen again. Probably."

"When are we going to do real magic. When are we going to learn how to make things explode like you did before?" Harry Potter, greatest of wizards heckled. The older man looked him in the face, tilted his head mockingly and pushed up his glasses.

"Oh sorry, we can't all practice the arcane majesty you can, some people have to learn how to cast magic. You'll be learning about that when I'm ready, in other words after you know about sigils, magical intelligences, circuits, marble locks, physics and all that jazz." The class traded bemused looks. The professor sighed.

"Sigils are markings created by magic flowing through wand onto a surface, like paper. Usually they take the guise of a two dimensional drawing with a dot in the middle and circles going outwards like a tree trunk. Each circle represents the order the function it represents is carried out. This is measured from the inside out. Magical intelligences are stored inside your wands. They're a quality of life thing since you had to define everything in your sigils pre-18th century. They interact with a magical subconscious that remembers things like the effects of the sigils you create for eternity. You don't have to constantly make 'em, only once. The quality-of-life effects also extend to estimates. If you say 'I want my shield to not block anything unless it's above the speed of a bullet.' And you've read how fast a bullet is it'll apply that, then if not it'll guess. Get too vague and it won't activate thought."

"What was next? Ah, circuits are how magic travels within the 'magic universe' and how it moves into our universe. You see, magic can only exist in our universe in a form that already exists. Energy. Kinetic, magnetic, electrical, there's no such thing as 'magic energy.' A stupefy isn't made of magic, it's created out of light, and a slight amount of heat energy that activates a biological effect upon impact that influences the target's brain. Within the universe of magic, circuits connect to a reservoir that is then connected to a replenishing pool of mana that varies by individual. I heard an interesting theory about why humans can produce so much mana and plants or animals can't, but that's not for now. These naturally occurring circuits are how you can use your mana and a meeting point between that universe between the energy of this universe and that universe. Oh, and a circuit can't exist without looping into another universe. You don't need to worry about them since I don't teach that kind of thing. Marble locks are sometimes called spell locks and are how you stop another wizard from getting into an artificial circuit you create like a sigil or the ones you use to bridge the gap between the magical universe and the physical. You as a wizard can create your own, artificial circuits. By creating a sphere with two holes in it attached to the lines of your sigil you can circumvent it, you stick one hole facing into an artificial circuit and one outwards, by making the marble activate to a certain frequency it'll let your mana flow into the circuit you created. By increasing the amount of marbles you decrease the chance of someone else finding the right frequency. This stretches into billions for an adult wizard as the size of them is minuscule, like atoms compared to Everest. Finally, to influence the real world you need knowledge of the real world. The library posses a mountain of scientific books, both muggle and wizard. Use them."

"Dear lord I've hit a tangent again, bear with me a nano second." In the blink of an eye an almighty gust of wind erupted sending the robes of students flapping for the back door. A small stack of papers had been placed on the desks of each young wizard. "Tests. Show me what you know, non-graded so go crazy."

"Sir, I have one question." Asked a familiar blonde idiot. The beady green eyes of Draco Malfoy addressed the underpaid tutor. "What even is your name?"

"Well, it's more of a title. It always seems to crop up everywhere and I guess it's the closest I have."

"Spit it out!" The eleven year old said with indignation.

"Bubblegum Hermit."

Silence.

Nothing.

Pure silence.

Five minutes. Five minutes was how long it took to get those little shits to stop laughing.

Minerva McGonagall sat in the esteemed offices of Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Mugwump of something-or-other and esteemed holder of titles. The circular office was plastered with the faces of numerous old men and women, all of whom deceased, all of them previous Heads of Hogwarts. With every table littered with spindly silver instruments of dubious purpose. All in all the same as every other corridor of Hogwarts.

The fireplace burst into green flames as the thin robed form of Albus Dumbledore strode into the room. He nodded to the deputy head and drew up a chair to the ornate table, fumbling with the beard tucked into his belt as he greeted Minerva.

"School year going well?"

"Delightfully, I've already had a student brawl with another on whether physics is magic. You?"

"Oh… Eventful." He said distantly. "Well, we're not here for idle chit chat. I trust you already know?"

"Harry Potter." She remarked with pursed lips. "What has he done? Oh I knew it was a mistake bringing him here Albus, he should've gone to that new Swedish academy."

"Oh no, apart from his allergy to Neville Longbottom he's doing swimmingly. I'm talking about the new CaM teacher, Hermit. I want to know, what's your opinion on him? Mine is, biased. To say the least."

"Well. The portraits have complained endlessly about his choice in music since half the castle can hear it, he's eccentric to say the least and his mouth is positively foul. But while air headed, I think he knows what he's doing. Why do you ask Albus? You're usually more trusting of your staff. Did you hire him on a whim?" This dynamic had been honed over years of afternoon meetings. At eight PM to nine PM the deputy head and Headmaster would meet and discuss the days events. Usually negative ones.

"Oh no, I've heard about him for years. What you have to understand about Hermit is that in his case, first impressions are completely useless. Then scrap second, third and fourth impressions because you're never going to get to the end of that rabbit hole. I'm happy that for now he's chosen to be non-confrontational. For that reason I must stay far, far away from him. We've had our differences in the past that stretch to today."

"Albus, I can only guess to what you're alluding to, but whoever he is I'm certain you wouldn't hire him unless he was completely safe." McGonagall spoke with cold preciseness.

"He's more of a 'whatever' really." Dumbledore said nonchalantly.

"Pardon?" She questioned.

"I… Nothing, it was nothing. Please continue." He deflected. McGonagall shifted her papers and gave him a worried glance as she moved to the top of the agenda and Dumbledore fiddled with an ink stained quill. The clock ticking between the two masters of Hogwarts in the amber light of the fireplace.

The personal room of Professor Bubblegum flickered in the amber light of a dozen outdated lamps. Two figures, student and teacher sat at a desk piled high with crime books and moulding mugs of days-old tea. One in a frayed wizard's cap that even the Sorting Hat would scoff at and the other a ginger boy with equally battered attire.

"Marvin Creek versus Grindelwald, unregulated, full power, they both want to kill each other, but they'll still do stuff like torture the other before they kill 'em." Ron called across the classroom, his hand in a pack of 'Barnaby's Banana Bumblebees'.

"Is Grindelwald allowed outside assistance? He was the leader of the Third Reich." The professor said as he observed the spine of a textbook. Ron nodded and plunged his hand into the sweets of unclear origin.

"Oh? Grindelwald then. Easy." Hermit stated. "I don't think it's been disclosed yet, but I read a document about his powers. Because he knew his weaknesses he could account for 'em. His entire library of spells revolved around it. He only ever used two spells, one of them was a magical intelligence that used his own magic to run millions of possible spell frequencies simultaneously, most people I know can only do a couple, but with the aid of this thing he could break his opponents magic in seconds. Then he had his own magic branch of the SS, killers, pariah assassins. If he ever had to fight against another wizard he'd reach into a pouch of marbles and throw two on the floor. Two mages, one a master in defense and one in offense would help him while he tried to break through the enemy's spell lock protection. When that was finished he'd throw the rest on the floor calling in an entire team of his SS, taking the enemy hostage. Marvin Creek may have never been beaten with his defensive spells, but that's for nil against old Grindy, he's either got to sacrifice that protection to put more work into his spell lock and get pelted against by twin mages." Ron, although deeply engrossed in his food nodded his head in agreement.

"Yeah, but how did Dumbles beat 'im then?" Weasley asked.

"Dumbledore's speciality is teleportation without a portkey, apparition, there's not many who can do it. Grindelwald's spell hacking was most effective against shields, because those are constantly being cast meaning a longer time to test combinations. For near-instant spells, like a bolt or Dumbledore's teleportation, he couldn't cast the spell before the effect had activated and the opportunity passed. What he used was a field that automatically detected when a spell was about to be cast, then tried to unlock it each time. Dumbledore had another wizard construct another magical intelligence that changed the frequency of his spell lock every time, making the chance that Grindelwald would be able to hack into his spell lock minuscule. Dumbledore managed to slip a high explosive into Grindelwald's pouch and when he opened it, he blew his own hand off. The schematics for Grindey's spell unlocking were taken in by the ministry and he was hanged for his crimes." The teacher continued to move through the pile of books as he spoke, checking the quality of each for missing pages. Deciding whether if they were bound for the bookshelf or bin.

"Yeah, me brother Bill used to do that kind of thing for the ministry. Reclaiming dangerous spells, found a dragon summoning one once. Had to mess with the 'eads of an entire Tanzanian village after. Then his metabolism slowed down and had to get a desk job." Ron said with indifference while admiring two Chili-Shape-Changers stuck together at the head. Professor Bubblegum pushed up his glasses and looked at him with confusion.

"Pardon?"

"We Weasley's have a legendary metabolism. You can eat anything you want and you won't get chubby, come twenty one and suddenly if you eat a bloody apricot you're obese."

Throwing out a torn copy of From Russia With Love Hermit realized the time.

"Oh, we're almost done. What did I put you in detention for anyway?"

"I was eating in class sir." Ron said piling his food into his hand me down bag.

"Don't I usually let you eat as long as you give me some when I ask?"

"McGonagall came in, you panicked and threw a book at me while shouting 'Eating Detention'." After packing up his possession Ron moved for the dungeon door. Hermit tapped the table twice with his quill and called out into the darkness.

"Mr Potter, please enter."

Harry Potter folded his arms and sulked.

"This is bullshit." He proclaimed.

"No, this is a detention, good try though." Hermit smiled.

"I just wanted to learn real spells. How else am I going defeat Lord Voldemort?" Harry spoke with childish conviction. Hermit took a couple seconds to catch his breath after choking on his gum.

"What? Did you just say you want to defeat Lord Voldemort? Because I swear that's what I heard."

"Yeah, what, you think I won't be able to do it again?" Harry pouted.

"Kid, if you wanted to defeat him you'd need to be about sixty years older and you'd still need to sacrifice everything. No. No way." Hermit adjusted the position of his robes and looked to Harry in interest.

"I'll take whatever it takes to defeat Voldemort, train me, I don't know how you moved like that in the first lesson, but if you show me i'll finally be able to defeat him!" He cried. Hermit rubbed his face and lost his usual smirk. His usual wide-eyed ness died down as he slumped back in his chair.

"Harry. I'm sure you're going to do great things, you're the hero, it's an inevitability. I could list the reasons you wouldn't want to be like me till the death of the universe. I was born with a low magic capacity and the repercussions of the things I did to circumvent that are still with me today. You don't have to do what I did, your reserves of Mana are massive and your efficiency will improve with time. Do you get me?" At the end of his irritated speech Professor Bubblegum resettled in his seat and let out a deep sigh.

"Sir, I understand what you mean." Harry said matching his tone. "I'm not an idiot. But this stretches far, far further than me. It's not that I want to beat him, even though I do. It's that I need to. I know he's out there, somewhere. If I'm that foolish why won't you help? You could help me fight him, we'd do it together. This isn't a pride thing, if you don't think you're powerful enough then you can teach me all I need to know." He stared at the professor with large, green eyes behind his glasses. What Hermit saw was a boy with a short temper and immense potential. A boy who was a danger to himself.

"No. I won't teach you how to fight Voldemort, because I'm in no position to oppose him. I won-"

"What, every wizard should oppose him! He's evil!" Harry shouted, the noise echoing through Hogwart's halls.

"Things aren't as simple as that!" Hermit retorted. "Just because someone is called a 'Dark Lord' doesn't make them evil. What makes them evil is the treatment of innocents. If I join a fight and find out that i'm on the wrong side it'll be too late. The world doesn't operate on a sliding scale and Dumbledore has just as much blood on his hands as Voldemort. I refused him twice and I'll refuse him for a third." Hermit hurriedly gathered Harry's paper and thrust them into his hands.

"If you wish to continue this conversation then i'm afraid you'll have to leave. I don't care that you didn't do your biology homework. Detention is officially over." Harry accepted his papers and stared at him, a lock of hair shifting and revealing the scar of legend.

"Anyone who won't fight Voldemort might as well be with him. See you next lesson." Turning on his heels he paced out the door. The teacher exhaled and laid his head on the desk. Touching his hand to his wand he raised it into the air above him, turned on some music and fell asleep to the merry tune.

_Professor_

_Professor_

_Professor Bubblegum_

His eyes opened directly into the fungus of an upturned coffee mug, Hermit Bubblegum grunted to the disembodied voice.

"Who is it? What time is it?"

"Hermione Granger." Claimed the high-pitched visitor. "It's eight pm, you fell asleep, you might want to turn down your music as well, the portraits were complaining about you listening to Under the Sea on loop."

"Fuck 'em, if they don't like The Little Mermaid they can ask a Slytherin to erase their ears or 'summit." He drowsily mumbled.

"Please don't make me call out your name again, it makes me feel silly." Apparently-Hermione complained. Hermit pushed himself up, the sixty seventh page of Greenmantle stuck to his face.

"I've told you a hundred times, it's just a title that stuck a while back." The funnily-named professor grumbled.

"I can't imagine where it came from." The girl said in her usual upper-class accent.

"No. You couldn't." Hermit agreed.

"Sir, I don't want to question your judgement." Hermione said, beginning to pry. "But I feel that my reason for being here isn't fair, I was only asking questions." Her teacher drew himself up from his slouch and pushed his glasses back up his nose.

"Everyone was starting to think you were a nerd, so I gave you some time to ask me questions without looking bad." He claimed while rotating his left arm.

"Oh." She shrugged. "Thank you, but I really don't need that. I don't care about what people think about me."

"Nah, I think that's a lie. Anyway, look at this like an extra revision session. If you have any questions write them down in lesson and come here at eight at night. I have other students to teach in lesson and it preserves your social life."

"I don't think there's much to preserve." Granger smiled meekly.

"Anyway, draw up a chair." Hermit said, fully awake. "What did you want to ask?"

"Well…" Hermione hesitated pulling out her books. "My parents, they're muggles and what I thought when I saw all of… this was everything we could do in the muggle world. I read that interaction with a magical artifact gave you magic, so why can't my parents be wizards as well?

"That's a good one actually, thought of it myself when I was first introduced to all this." Professor Bubblegum replied with enthusiasm. "Us wizards, since you're a wizard now, aren't special. Muggles are. What you got is only half the story, you see, when you put the Sorting Hat on your head you weren't just choosing what house you were in, which is completely random by the way. What you were doing was allowing it to open the natural dormant circuits that exist between the physical and arcane universe. Muggles have these as well, the difference is that muggles are loaded with defenses, in all essences they are impregnable to magic that's non-physical. Try to take over a muggle's mind and you'll find nothing, fields can't detect them, the only way to deal with a muggle is to create something physical, like a bullet and fire it at them. We don't know why this is, but it's probably involved with the fact that the system me use now is still a subset of a larger system. Does that answer your question?"

"Perfect." Hermione said as she nodded furiously. Professor Bubblegum grinned at the appreciation of his work.

"Y'know, you're a heck of a lot easier to deal with than the others." He expressed nonchalantly.

"Well I read a heck of a lot more than the others." Hermione beamed.

"For all I know you could be a Death Eater in disguise, but you have to know that these days being a good person is in shorter supply than ever." Hermit said in an overly serious tone.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." Hermione laughed. "Now, can we get back to work or will me talk about philosophy for the rest of this detention?" Hermit brushed dust of his cap to hide his embarrassment.

"Of course. Back to work." The two wizards worked into the wee hours of the night, through sunrise and right into the start of breakfast feast until Hermione had to go to lessons.

Hagrid's cabin is the common meeting point of delinquents, monsters and students seeking herbal refreshment. Today Hagrid's cabin houses one of its first professors. Hermit Bubblegum.

"So ye' sayin' he'd treat ye' like Voldemort if ya' 'dint help 'im fight?" Hagrid boomed as loud as an Amazonian Caller Toad.

"Pretty much." Chuckled his smoking partner Bubblegum.

"That's me 'Arry!" The half-giant bellowed. "Always pickin' a fight. Sorry 'e's harsh on ya'. E's a good lad."

"I don't doubt your judgement." His superior said while taking another puff from a comically over sized pipe that stretched to the floor.

"Hey Hagrid." He said after a couple minutes of silence, "I heard the black-market umbrella-wand you definitely don't have has the core of a Troll's you-know-what hair." Hagrid took another long breath from his slightly less comical pipe (in proportion to his size).

"Well if I did 'av a black market wand, you'd be wrong. It'd be a giants you-know-what hair." Hagrid's revelation sent Hermit into a coughing fit. Hagrid ran with it.

"Jus' tryin' ta' connect with me heritage I guess." His final comment sent the two into a fit of giggling for even longer.

"Hagrid." The professor said, holding up his hand for silence. "You have got to tell me where you found this Hungarian Herb."

"Well… Professor."

"Please call me Hermit."

"Aye, Hermit, trouble is, lookin' like I do you get an all manner of dodgy sorts tyrin' 'ta sell ya' stuff. No offense 'ta ya', but you're not goin' ta' get many sellers lookin' like that. Some shady bloke comes up ta' me and sells me some Hungarian Herb at a decent rate and I accept. Only problem is I have to drink from a flask in case they mistake me for a bear!" He shouted slapping his gut. This sent Hermit into another fit of hysterics and coughing.

"Hagrid you _cannot_ say that. Besides, if I decided to go out looking like I really do i'd get the ministry grabbing me by the neck and throwing me into the Dangerous Magical Creatures department." He said speaking out of the corner of his mouth, the other clamped firmly on his pipe.

"Ah, ye' can't be that bad. You're one of ta' first teachers 'ere who doesn't 'ave a broomstick up their arse. Only time I ever get some fun is when 'ol Severus gets drunk."

"The one who looks like a licorice bootlace?" Bubblegum chuckled.

"Aye, aye, aye. Normally he looks like someone tried to stick a Fermented Fizzbomber in his you-know-what. Get him pissed and he'll try an' get into McGonagall." Hagrid focused hard for the next couple seconds and attempted to blow out a circle using the smoke. He failed and ended up having to pause to catch his breath.

"Hagrid!" Hermit said in a voice that was far too loud to be socially acceptable. "Let's break out the drinks! To the first week of Hogwarts life!" Hagrid put his pipe to one side and obliged, pulling out two tankards of mulled mead.

"Ta' the most fun teacher to come ta' Hogwarts in a hundred bloody years. Cheers!"

_-End_

**HPLOB Will continue weekly **


	2. Chapter 2: Exposition before the storm

Hogwarts library was notorious for being Labyrinthian, for a short period there had been an attempt to map it out. The expedition was met with failure when they realized it changed layout when out of sight. Much like the Headmaster it could be summarized as 'Ornate and dusty but with a certain charm about it.'

It was usually inhabited by a variety of students, however most can be put into three distinct parties. Crammers who flood in days before the advent of a project to be turned in, those who seek a meeting place to perform hobbies and finally, nerds. Between the shelves of Construction and Mechanics all three have gathered under the banner of Harry, Neville, Ron and Hermione.

Ron had finally decided to put away his sweets and pull out a deck of cards. Each one had a similar back of a stave crossed alongside a sword with a dark brown coloration. Harry and Neville had decided to neglect their homework to a day before it was due and Hermione was just there for the quiet, which had been promptly broken by the arrival of the others.

"So… How do you actually create a field that cancels through the floor?" Neville asked as he feverishly looked to Harry.

"Neville i'm not omnipotent, we've looked in every section. If there was an answer me could get from a book we'd have it by now." The girl to Harry's right poked a strip of paper into her eight hundred page tome and swiveled on her seat.

"You don't need to bully him you know. I've got free time, and if it gets you out of the library all the better." Shuffling over she unfolded a piece of lined paper with scrawled diagrams, notes and calculations. "All this is extra stuff, but what you need to know is that you have to use the normal specifications for a sphere 4 times pi, with a radius of two meters squared. Then you specify 'if field would pass through object with a density of two point five grams per square centimeter or above, take alternative route. If alternative route would exceed initial radius, take alternative route. That should do it for yours, but I put a detector in mine that allowed me to dodge granite specifically, yours just uses the average density." Hermione leant back in her chair and shuffled back to her seat, Harry muttered thanks and returned to his companion.

"You got that down?" He demanded. Neville smiled and nodded.

"I wouldn't be much of a henchman if I didn't." Neville nodded. He swung round his own scrawled jottings. After a couple minutes of adding annotations that looked like they'd worked it out themselves Harry packed up his books and pulled out one of 'Herbert and Bertie's Homing Bouncy Ball.'

"What are you going to use this for anyway?" He said as he threw the ball to the right of Hermione's book.

"What, schoolwork?" Hermione asked sarcastically. Harry nodded as the purple ball hit another bookcase after rebounding off the table and swerved into his palm. "Why, I don't know. It's only the most important foundation after all. Harry, this is wizarding, not Muggle school. Everything is based on what you learned before, if you don't know it now you're not going to be able to progress any further until you do."

"I can always release an exclusive, tell all autobiography." He claimed.

"I'm sure the dark lord would shiver at the thought, maybe if you insert a pipe bomb as a free gift he'd manage to kill himself." She said sarcastically. "If I can tell you're deflecting you better work on your act."

"Well, I think you'd be able to guess what my end goal was." Harry dismissed as he threw the ball again.

"I'd like to hear it from the horses mouth." She asserted for the second time. The boy-who-lived cracked his knuckles and sighed.

"I want to defeat the man who killed my parents."

"Defeat?"

"Kill." Ron glanced up at the comment, smiled and returned to shuffling. Hermione and Harry took no notice.

"Why… That's, ambitious. Harry, forgive me if I offend you, but i'm under the impression you never really knew your parents and were raised by muggles? Why are you so vehemently against him?" She asked. Harry shifted in his seat and pretended not to be embarrassed.

"Well, you know how you automatically do stuff? Like, I know you've probably always been reading. Well, it's the same with me and him. Even when I was with the Dursleys I felt like there was _something_ I wasn't getting. When I heard about you-know-who, the first thought I had was 'this is it, this is what I was looking for.' If you can understand that?" Harry returned to his book to avoided a frontal confrontation.

"No, I understand. Some things are just in our nature as you said, like me and books. But the problem that arises is, how are you going to defeat an immortal Dark Lord with forty more years of experience than you?" The girl inquired.

"Oh, when I said kill I didn't mean kill him myself. I'll do whatever it takes to help, even if all I can do is peel potatoes. The only thing I want is to do as much as possible to help the effort, i'm not going to galavant around England trying to slay him. Even if I learn the spells needed, it'd be like a ten year old trying to fight Mike Tyson after watching all his matches. Even if he has the knowledge he won't have the raw power. That's what I've been thinking about and it's what I've had to accept." Hermione nodded knowingly.

"I find The-Boy-Who-Peeled-Potatoes is a far less dramatic nickname." She chuckled.

"So what's your goal, girl-who-reads-copious-amounts-of-books?" Harry mirrored, happy to get off the subject of himself.

"Oh, I don't know yet. In the muggle world I wanted to be a doctor, but now you can just drink a smoothie that's been enchanted to lower blood pressure. I still want to help though, whether it's the wizarding world or the normal one." After a couple more minutes of idle conversation Ron finally perked up.

"I always wanted to be rich y'know." He nonchalantly expressed.

"Don't me all?" Harry in a dismissive tone.

"I mean proper rich, the kind of rich where you can buy out a supermarket and drive a quad bike round without worrying about the cost."

"No offense intended, again, but I've heard your family is…" Hermione trailed off before she could say the final word.

"Poor? Yeah, you'd be about right. 'Course it's not as bad when you're a wizard. Technically we're homeless according to the muggle government, still haven't converted the old 18th century Galleon's to actual currency." He said, unoffended by Hermione's comment.

"Well how do you plan on reaching this large sum of money?" She asked as the other visitors of the library began to filter out for the oncoming broomstick race.

"Threaten, lie or cheat, a Weasley always finds a way!" He repeated with pride

"That is the least inspiring family motto I've heard in my entire life." Hermione snorted with indignation.

"Well, when your family is one of only sixteen made of pure wizards, you've got to live up to your reputation y'know?" He said as he leafed through his various accumulated cards.

"I didn't know you were into the whole blood purity thing." Harry inquired.

"Hah, not a chance. We've been trying to get off the record for years. Just a bit of sarcasm."

"Anyway." Hermione interrupted. "Wasn't I asking you how you planned to become rich before you spurted that _awful_ bit of family history." Ron laid his cards on the table to give the question a bit more thought.

"Hm, well, i'm not that clever. I'm not going to be making any scientific advancements anytime soon. Fred and George want to run an overpriced sweet shop so that's out of the question. I guess i'll cheat my way through. My dad always was a gambler." Ron claimed indifferently.

"Why is your solution to everything to cheat it?" Hermione sighed with annoyance.

"If you can cheat a question, you can cheat a test, if you can cheat a test you can cheat your OWLs, if you can cheat your OWLs you can cheat the Ministry. Most people quit after the first couple, the thing is you have to have _ambition_ when you cheat." Ron said, puffing out his chest with pride in his lineage.

"How have you Weasley's not been arrested?" She groaned into her book.

"We may cheat, but we're not liars. Apart from when we lie of course. But we don't make waves and when the time comes, we fight on the right side. Besides, everyone's got need of a weasel now and again?" Stretching his arms he said goodbye and packed his cards into his bag. This left Hermione, Neville and Harry as the only ones left within the library's walls. A couple more minutes in silence and Hermione took action against the awkwardness.

"What do you want to be when you're older Neville?" She asked in an attempt to stave off silence.

"Um, you really want to know?" He muttered quietly. Hermione nodded her head.

"Of course."

"There isn't much to tell really, but since i'm one of the wizard families i'll probably have to become the head of House Longbottom. My grandmother isn't going to live forever after all." He sighed.

"Oh that's an awful thought!" Hermione said gasping. "But really, what's that to aspire to? Don't you want to be anything more than an inherited head of house?" Neville straightened his back at her comment.

"It's not just that, all through history all the Longbottom men have ruined everything. Every time something good happens it's always when a woman is the head of house. I don't want to be like that, I don't want to people to look back on me in a hundred years and go 'wow, what an idiot.' It's a massive pressure, only a couple of people are able to understand usually. You spend all your life being groomed for this position, and one day, one mistake will ruin everything you've built up." He said with grim resolve.

"Why I… That's quite the legacy you have Neville. How many other houses are there?" She asked with interest.

"Noble houses." He corrected. "A house is just another name for a wizard family, like House Weasley, but a Noble House has responsibilities to go with the name. The heads of each house are granted a seat on the council. Artifacts that they own are given 'heirloom' status as long as they remain unused. You're automatically allowed entrance into Hogwarts. That sort of thing." Neville began to gather up his books as well, if you were late to the starting line it wasn't uncommon to be refused entry.

"You coming? You can ask more questions on the way if you're not done." He bumbled cheerfully. His spirits had been considerably lifted by being able to take a position of authority for the first time.

"Absolutely." Hermione agreed packing up her books as well. Harry did the same. Thus the library was left silent as the final students left for the race. It would stay empty for a far longer time than was usual, a side effect of unfortunate the events to come.

The roar of the crowed swallowed any conversation that currently occurred. A blazing circle of light illuminated the Hufflepuff racer, Herbert Fleet. He flashed a pearly smile to the floating camera and climbed on an enchanted vehicle that could definitely not be described as a 'broomstick'. It was a spindly, chrome thing. A two meter pole with a bike seat and two pedals that was kept aloft by the magic casted by sixth year Hufflepuff technicians. Four stands of blue, green, yellow and red were arranged along the starting line, with the teacher's box directly above it in a regal purple.

The teachers (and headteacher) in attendance wittered among themselves as the other racers, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor each strode out of the light and onto their equally surreal mounts. Hermit leant over to his coworker Severus and jabbed a finger at the silver contraptions.

"Those are _not_ broomsticks." He exclaimed. "Those are… Wait, is Ravenclaw using a floating stool?" He was indeed correct, Ravenclaw had decided to reduce weight by using a circular stool. Severus cracked his knuckles and smiled.

"You are technically correct on both accounts. Those are not broomsticks in the domestic sense, and Ravenclaw is indeed using a stool. I take it you're unfamiliar with out variant of racing?" He asks with a smirk. Snape can at times be cruel to his students and at all times calculating his next move to make no matter how small. However he wasn't _completely_ insufferable as the rumors made him out to be. Hermit nodded as Severus continued.

"Each racer starts and ends at the finish line. Each lap is a variable size around the Hogwarts grounds and they may fly as high as they like. The teams are given a certain boundary of magical energy to work with that they may not exceed. If they use all of the magical fuel up they're out of the race. They must enchant and construct the broomsticks themselves, the only limits to how they may build are a size limit and that the broomstick must include a physical component." Hermit waved his hand in dismissal.

"Yes yes all that is obvious. But, of all designs, why did Ravenclaw choose a _stool_." He asked in frustration. Snape tapped his crooked nose and smirked.

"Why Hermit, apparently I thought too highly of you. The safety wards have to be weaved out of the same reserves of mana. Gryffindors is well balanced, without levitation you could sit on it like a motorbike. This means their broom weighs more, and so needs more energy to keep up. Ravenclaw have opted to keep their physical component to a minimum meaning they have to expend more energy weaving the balancing and safety wards, but they don't have to spend as much on propulsion. Clever isn't it? It encourages innovation in the students through a will to win, well, that's what we said to the ministry. We just thought it was a bloody fun idea." He finished, rounding off his speech.

"Wouldn't the rules allow for a racer to skimp on safety to go faster? Seems like something that'd get a student killed." Hermit replied in interest.

"Wait and see." Severus asserted, Hermit noted his hand was on a pouch of gold coins.

The umpire, the grey haired Madam Hooch strode from where the other racers had emerged. Making her way between each racer she muttered something indistinguishable from the stands and tapped their brooms with her wand. Each one were revealed in the colors of their house, one blue and bronze, another green and silver, scarlet and gold or yellow and black. Snape tapped Hermit on the shoulder to grab his attention.

"Cosmetics aren't counted by the racer's energy budget. Her tapping the broom not only adds paint, but also changes the outside to reflect any safety wards. That way racers know how far away they are from bumping into each other. That's not the real point though. The real purpose is to add on the _actual_ safety wards so they don't go off and break their neck. The staff thought of it five hundred years ago and the students have been none the wiser." He finished with a flourish.

"I don't suppose you told Slytherin about it a couple days before they started building their broom, meaning they wouldn't have to add in safety wards so they get an edge over the competition. With you winning an unusually risky bet for your own house to win?" Hermit asked with fake innocence.

"Please, I would never be so obvious. If I were to have a scheme it'd have _far_ less variables. No, I don't suppose I did do that. Nice try though." He said in the most viciously civil tone he could muster. Hermit shivered and lifted up a pair of brass goggles he had hanging around his neck.

The four vehicles that looked like Ferrari made an escape pod rose into the azure sky, the grass of the re purposed quidditch pitch shuddering under the force of four unique levitation charms. Madam Hooch stood to the side, the crowd silent in anticipation. She raised her arm as the racers gripped whatever they could find. She flung her arms downwards, the crowd roaring for their respective teams. Three racers shot off into the distance sending the robes of hundreds of students flurrying against the wind. Then, as the atmosphere lowered and their eyes began to turn to each other, they spotted Slytherin. His mount stood still, simply hovering in the air. A magnificently dumb smile on Marcus Marbury's face, observing the reactions of his fellow students. Hooch glided over to him, checking that his broom was working, then checking if he wasn't in need of a trip to the St Mungo's psychiatric ward. He did the same as he did before, smile and wave his hand. Comfortably sitting back and pulling out a pocket sized textbook.

Hermit readjusted his hat and turned slowly to his right. Snape displayed a wolfish grin and patted the coins to his side.

"As I said, if I were to scheme I would use a far more outlandish scheme than you're able deduce." He claimed, still revelling in the confusion of the crowd. His companion racked his brains for an answer.

"You used Legilimency to get through the minds of the other racers, at some point they're going to do something outrageous that revolves around the fact that Slytherin can't move. Wait! What if you used Legilimency to convince all three teams to do something that's against the rules, causing all three to be disqualified!" Hermit deduced while Snape shook his head and tutted.

"Not quite so. I'd need eye contact with at least one member of each team. None of them take my chemistry class and I have met none either in private or in a group. I need apply to get mind-altering spells like Legilimency and those are subject to ministry mandated conditionals. Finally, I doubt i'd learn so much about neuroscience to construct my own version to cheat in a Hogwarts race and if I developed it for other reasons, I wouldn't reveal it for a trivial occasion like this. Does this answer your theory?" He asked with piercing smugness. The other professor sighed and muttered a morose 'no'.

Further discussion of the standstill of Slytherin continued through the second, third and fourth laps. Then as it became apparent that the boy was content with his situation, it died down into a much calmer conversation about the new school year. Professor Quirrell, master of being out of his depth had launched into a seemingly endless rant about his turban.

"Do you know?" He asked with indignation. "Not the other day, I heard a student joking about me having You-Know-Who on the back of my head. It was absolutely humiliating, you wouldn't talk about Stephen Fry having Adolf Hitler in between his breeches, this new year seems to have just _decided _never to listen to anybody. I already have to deal with being searched on aeroplanes, every single time, without fail. It's positively _awful_ having to deal with this kind of discrimination. I'm not even… Well, you know. Of the ethnicity that is the reason they search people. I expect you'll know what i'm talking about Flitwick, when you want to use international portkeys of course." Flitwick glanced at him in suppressed frustration.

"What do you mean 'i'll know what you're talking about'."

"Well, tensions are high, people might think you're full goblin instead of part." Quirrel shrugged.

"Goblin blood?"

"Yes…" The color drained from Quirrell's face. "Goblin blood…"

"Quirrel, do you know where Goblins are?" Quirinus shook his head. "Nowhere, because they're not bloody real you buffoon."

"What!?" He shouted so loud they could probably hear him in the astrology tower. "You're… Um, you're…"

"Yes, like Warwick Davis, i'm not half Goblin and a fifth leprechaun and three eighths forest nymph. Congratulations you-."

"Oh, do you not use international portkeys Quirrell?" McGonagall interjected before the situation ended in a brawl. The embarrassed professor turned his back to the fuming Flitwick and addressed her in the bench above him.

"It's b-bloody expensive." He stammered. "Think twice what the muggles use, greedy b-basterds. There's only twenty thousand of us and the ministry still try and suck us dry."

"Ah, when you put it look like that me do look quite… minuscule don't we? Sixty million muggles to twenty thousand, why, we could only fill a small village at this point." She said wistfully as the racers came by for their fifth pass.

Gryffindor led in first place a hundred meters in the air, Hufflepuff hot on the lion's heels, Ravenclaw some distance back but still in the running. The pack leader gritted her teeth and kept a firm grip on the handles of her broomstick. Conditions had become more and more hazardous as the laps had wore on, with the sky being covered in a sheet of solid fog. They came in from the south at breakneck speed, diving low to gain as large an edge as possible in the final stretch. Both dive bombing as fast as they could, Ravenclaw doing the same. The crowed roared, throwing up their hands in anticipation. She jammed the throttle forwards and felt an unfamiliar feeling. A looseness to the pull, she took her hand of and pulled twice again. Nothing. The throttle was unresponsive, whether the propulsion was still working or not she was heading at terminal velocity towards ground in a straight nose dive. Tearing her head against the wind she saw Hufflepuff fumbling with his throttle as well. Once was an accident, twice was sabotage. Slytherin, it had to be… No, the reason her mind jumped to Slytherin was why it couldn't be them. they'd never be so obvious. She racked her head and refocused on the subject her hand. Her imminent death. They were barely higher than the teacher's box now. She could see the horrified looks on each of their faces, she had begun to spin in midair. Dumbledore! Dumbledore had sprung out of his chair, leaping over the heads of all the others. But why? He'd never reach her, she was meters from him.

She felt a body slam into her from behind, she was knocked from her broom. A slight improvement, but still dying in painfully slow motion. Her back rotated to face the ground, she could see the sky now. The sky and the Hufflepuff rider being tackled off his broom by Dumbledore. Why was he… How did he get there, why is he barging people off brooms? She thought to herself. A millisecond later, he was gone, nothing, not a puff of smoke. Dumbledore didn't matter, it was her who mattered, she was the one who was dying. Through the howling of the wind around her ears she heard another thump, further away this time. The stands loomed larger and larger as she reached the ground, she could feel it. The blades of grass, the soil. All of them in harmony before her body crashed into them from a hundred meters, flung from her broom by a mad wizard. Now he was above her, his arm curled like he was bracing for the impact. Dumbledore couldn't survive this, even if he was sixty years younger he wouldn't survive this. Then, gone again. Pain flared in her right side, she was a meter away from death. What was this? What was this pain? She could feel her body shifting against it, something had barreled into her, she wasn't skittering downwards, she was going sideways now. What the hell was going on? What the hell is happening? Her face passed inches from the soil, her arm landing first, then her back, then her other arm. She was rolling, rolling on the grass. Not dead. Not now, she was alive.

The crowd stared in horror as Dumbledore leaped from the stands, teloported, rugby tackled three of the racers, then on their way down rugby tackled them a second time. Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw laid on the grass, staring at the sky, while Dumbledore clutches his right arm in pain and bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"Professors! Professors…" He pulled at his clothes in pain. "Check… check your watches!"

Every educator in the purple stand pulled out an identical brass watch and tapped the screen three times. The concealed emergency messenger, to be used in case of a breach in Hogwarts defenses zoomed out from their location, racing towards the castle. Flying through the hallways, classrooms and stairs it barreled up the entrance to the headmasters office. Specifically, the figure seated in the headmaster's chair. Severus slammed his watch shut as the others gaped in horror. He pushed his wand to his throat and yelled using loudspeaker. "Students, go to your certified safe areas near the forest, Sprout, Quirrell, Flitwick and Hagrid will direct you. You are not to break off and you are not to leave once you enter. For any reason!" He flipped open the brass lid again and took another glance at the invader. He cleared his throat to rid himself of all mannerisms that could be confused for fear and continued.

"There has been an incursion in the wards of Hogwarts. An incursion of which the nature me have not seen in eleven years." His tone quavered on the final line. "A servant of the dark lord has revealed himself."

The next HPLOB chapter will be a double parter released in two weeks.


End file.
